You are absolutely right… I posted a while ago about a solid-state lab project I was working on. I made pretty large steps towards that, but I eventually realized that it would only make a difference if I could leverage the latest technology. So I’ve spent the last months working on a smaller-scale project (a very low-cost ultrasound imaging machine) and finally I’m starting to see some tangible results; I will build and present the final prototype in collaboration with my university, but the important thing here is that I’m getting both experience and reputation, plus I’m convincing a friend (an engineering lab researcher) to join an eventual, larger-scale, solid-state lab project. The idea is not to get “something that works and is open source”, as it was before, but to research cutting-edge technology.